How comfortable are you with robots teaching your kids in the future?

Every industry is facing a real threat of being disrupted or displaced by technology, robotics and automation in the future. Just look at the damages these new hi-tech firms such as AirBnB, Spotify and Uber have inflicted on the lodging, music and taxi industries respectively. Even in the education sector we’re starting to witness the use of robots teaching kids, particularly in Japan and Korea, in the classrooms. If this trend is allowed to continue, will the job of school educators disappear In the future?  

To celebrate its centenary, the University of Western Australia (UWA)’s Faculty of Education gathered five leading alumni from a diversity of background to discuss the future of education at Hwa Chong Institution Singapore on 21 April 2016. The panel speakers included moderator Karen Lam (Channel News Asia Presenter), Harish Shah (Futurist & Speaker), Dr. Seow Bee Leng (Service Excellence Trainer), Dr. Marcus Lee (Sport Biomechanist) and Michelle Chern (Banker).   

I’ve found the panel discussion to be highly valuable, insightful and thought-provoking as it explored many questions relating to Singapore’s effectiveness in educating its youth for the future. As President of UWA Alumni Singapore Network I like to share with you some of the highlights from each of the speakers:

Harish Shah – Jobs that require predominantly linear thinking and low skills run a high risk of disappearing in the future. Therefore, it’s critical for current and future generations to acquire capabilities in non-linear thinking such as systems thinking that better equips us to thrive in a VUCA (Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) environment. So teachers play a critical role in educating our children “how” and not just “what” to think so as to future-proof them.   

To increase the standards of living worldwide, universities play a vital role in providing free education to create a level-playing field for all people in the future. This is because denying a child to the right to education is to deny the fulfilment of his or her fullest potential. Several world-class universities such as Harvard, Stanford and Princeton have been jumping on the bandwagon of MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) by offering free online courses but their success rates (as reported in the December 2014 issue of Educause Review Online) have been disappointingly low at between 2 and 10 percent so far. The future for MOOC remains to be seen. There is also a need for us to ask this important question: "How are universities going to adequately fund and manage such a large-scale philanthropic venture in the future?"

Dr. Seow Bee Leng – Recent corporate restructuring brought about by global economic slowdown has led to the loss of jobs of many Singaporeans, in particular the older well-qualified employees. They are commonly referred to as the PMETs (Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians). One effective strategy of future-proofing our current and future generations is to develop them as T-shaped professionals. This will equip our talent the ability to apply and transfer their expertise from their single field to other areas to ensure long-term employability. 

Educators play a key role in instilling a love for learning among our current and future generations of employees. This passion for knowledge is acquired by experiential learning that involves students leaning forward rather than backward. The former learning approach is active and self-directed in nature whereas the latter passive and extrinsically motivated. It’s important for educators to get students to lean forward in their early years to progressively shift their questioning from “so what?” to “now what?”

Dr. Marcus Lee – Educators can take valuable lessons in truly educating our youth from General Electric’s Change Effectiveness Equation Q x A = E. This equation indicates that the Effectiveness (E) of any change within an organisation is dependent on the quality of its technical strategy (Q) and acceptance from its cultural or soft strategy (A). So for education to produce highly effective students in the future it’s critically vital for educators to place equal importance to the acquisition of technical and soft skills. Schools throughout Asia tend to rely on the traditional rote learning approach to drill information or knowledge into students. However, much debate is currently going on throughout most Asian societies questioning the efficacy of this memorization technique in preparing their people to create, adapt and strive in a climate of constant change in the future.   

Drawing from the analogy of sports, teachers can play the role of coaches in helping their students to seek the answers by themselves. What this means is that educators must make a conscious mindset shift from the beholder of all knowledge to facilitator of shared wisdom. With sport coaching, failure plays an important role to make learning stick. Educators can create a learning environment with safety net that facilitates students to make mistakes without the stigma of failure. The overarching message is: “It is safe to try so don’t be afraid to fail.” Teachers can then better utilize students’ failure as key teaching moments.  

Michelle Chern – Generally new graduates are not able to fully apply in their jobs the content, which tends to be broad, theoretical and generic, they have acquired at their universities. So it’s important for educators to ensure students also acquire soft skills such as analytical thinking, presentation and communication skills to increase their effectiveness at work. Michelle has found that her involvement with extra-curriculum activities such as debate, dance and drama while attending university has helped her immensely in being analytical, confident and articulated.    

From the panel discussion, the key to robot-proof our children in the future is to develop them to be lifelong active, flexible and curious learners. Although it’s expectant for universities to provide graduates the relevant technical knowledge in their chosen field of study, it’s also equally important to ensure they have the necessary advanced thinking and soft-skills to be effective at their workplace. Equipping our future graduates with the right set of skills must be approached holistically through an ecosystem rather than relying on universities to be the sole arbiter (see the top 10 skills required in 2020 identified in The Future of Jobs report by World Economic Forum). 

I like to thank you for reading this post and you can read my other posts on this link.